


Familiar

by adjectivebear (HealerAriel)



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alcohol, Dancing, F/M, and learn why you never ask Umi to surprise you, in which Liam Kosta and Grace Ryder drink too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 07:05:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10634760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HealerAriel/pseuds/adjectivebear
Summary: Kadara may not be the best place for a second date, but in the Heleus cluster sometimes you have to work with what you've got.





	

Kralla’s Song wasn’t the sort of place Liam would have preferred to take a girl for a date. But they were on Kadara anyway, and Grace had been giving him those hopeful looks ever since their sort-of date on Aya, and hey, at some point you just had to say fuck it, right? So yes, Kadara as a whole was a shite place for a date--for just about _anything_ , really--but it was the best he could do, and he couldn’t bear those looks anymore, Grace’s eyes all big and scared like she was half convinced he’d changed his mind about her and just hadn’t bothered to tell her yet.

He hadn’t done. Changed his mind, that was. It was just that whenever he tried to think of something he wanted to do, somewhere he wanted to take her, all he could think of were places in London, and then he got sad and had to _stop_ thinking.

And see, there he was, _thinking_ about it again.

Liam threw back the rest of his drink, swallowing the unwelcome images of home along with it.

He wasn’t sure what Umi had been serving--Grace loved asking bartenders to surprise her, especially after being advised not to--but it tasted like candy and hit like a freight train, and Liam was tremendously drunk by the time his favourite Pathfinder pulled him onto the dance floor.

There’d been a time--possibly this morning?--when Liam had scarcely believed the grave accounts of Grace’s alcohol-fueled sex mistakes. Grace Ryder was shy and awkward, couldn’t flirt to save her life, and turned into a blushing, stammering mess when he had his shirt off (which he’d started doing far more often because Grace was so damn _cute_ when she was a blushing, stammering mess, but nobody save Jaal _knew_ that, which was precisely how Liam intended to keep it). The idea of the girl he knew embarking on even a solitary walk of shame bordered on ludicrous.

Drunk Grace, it turned out, was a different beast entirely.

She backed up on him, swiveling her hips in time to the music, and he curled his hands around her waist. It was a familiar thing, a soft body winding against him as too-loud music reverberated in his chest, and Liam closed his eyes. Slightly different music, slightly better beer, and this might have been a London bar. This might have been a London girl--some English rose who glazed over when he talked about old movies and didn’t spend half her time poking through crumbling ruins and trying to befriend any wildlife that didn’t immediately try to eat her.

The location could definitely have been improved upon.

The company, though? Not in a million years.

He pulled her closer as the music slowed, one hand splayed over her belly. Her bum ground against him with each roll of her hips, and he could feel himself getting hard, but if Grace noticed she didn’t seem to care. She dropped her head back against his shoulder. She was so soft, and her hair smelled so nice, and it was early days but he was pretty sure he loved her, his heart thudding wildly when she leaned up to kiss his jaw.

She turned to face him as a new song began, pressing herself against the length of his body and, yeah, there was _no_ way in hell she could have missed the boner, so she _definitely_ didn’t care. She wound her arms around his neck, looking up at him with half-closed eyes, and he couldn’t help bending to meet her pretty pink lips.

This was familiar, too, and it was nice, and Liam was _absolutely_ going to start kissing Grace at every possible opportunity. She melted into his arms and he held her tight, licking into her sweet mouth, and they weren’t even dancing anymore so much as swaying gently to the rhythm as they kissed, but he didn’t _care_.

Next thing Liam knew they were outside--he _thought_ he recalled Umi telling them to get a room, but he might have been imagining shit because _fucking_ hell, what had she put in those drinks?--and he knew their heading was the Tempest, but it felt a lot farther away right then than it had that morning. They rounded the corner onto the docks and he stumbled--leaned?--against the wall, the impact knocking some of the air out of his lungs. Grace fell against him--or maybe he’d pulled her along?--and their lips met again, tongues tangling passionately.

“You’re crazy stupid hot, Kosta,” she panted when they came up for air. She slid her hands up his shirt, moaning appreciatively as her fingers mapped his abs.

“You’re not so bad yourself, Ryder,” he said. He gripped her arse--when had he gotten his hands on her arse? Oh, fuck it, who could remember--and pulled her hips flush with his. He’d only gotten harder since the dance floor, and she ground deliciously against his cock.

“So fucking sexy,” she said, her breath tickling him as she nipped and kissed along his neck. She sucked on a particularly good spot and he groaned, letting his reeling head fall back against the wall.

“ _God_ , Gracie.”

She bit down gently and he shuddered.

“You make me so wet,” she said, her fingers teasing along the waist of his trousers. “Just looking at you. Hearing your voice.” She ground her hips pointedly, and Liam had never once come in his pants, but he was getting dangerously close to doing so at that moment.

Grace dropped to her knees in front of him. She found his zipper and tugged slowly, pressing wet kisses to each newly-exposed patch of skin.

“What are you doing?”

“Kinda figured the offer here was pretty obvious,” Grace purred, grinning up at him.

Her eyes were unfocused.

_Oh goddammit..._

“Grace. _Grace_ ,” he repeated more firmly, gently prising her fingers from his zipper. “No.”

Her brows furrowed. “No?”

“No. Not tonight.”

“But... I thought you liked me,” she said, her voice so small and sad that he thought his heart might shatter on the spot.

“Yeah, Gracie, I do. And I don’t want you to feel bad in the morning.”

“I won’t.”

“Alright, well _I’m_ afraid you will, and that’s a problem for me,” he said. She looked unconvinced, hurt, and he lay his hand against her cheek. “Let’s just table this for when we haven’t had so much to drink, yeah?”

He helped her up--no mean feat, as he could barely stay upright himself--and gathered her into his arms. He kissed her forehead. Then he righted his clothes and started maneuvering them toward the ship.

 _Liam Kosta: first human in the galaxy to turn down a blowjob_ , he thought wryly. _God, wouldn’t Mum be proud._

 

* * *

  


Grace’s head didn’t hurt, which was nothing short of a miracle.

Pretty much everything _else_ did, though. Every muscle in her body ached as though she’d gone twenty rounds with a krogan. “Fuck.”

The warm shape curled up behind her stirred slightly. “Morning, sunshine,” it said in a devastatingly sexy English accent.

Grace grimaced. “Oh God,” she said, her voice coming out hoarse and croaky. “Did I puke last night?”

Liam chuckled. “ _Hell_ yeah. I’ve never seen that much come out of one person.”

“ _Fuuuuck_ ,” Grace repeated, scrubbing a hand over her face. Didn’t it just figure, though? They'd finally gotten to go on a date--a real, _actual_ date--so naturally she’d gone and and ruined it by getting trashed and throwing up in front of him, and--and… “Oh _God_ ,” she said, her stomach dropping as memories of the night before returned piecemeal to her brain. “Did I try to _blow_ you?”

“You did that, too.”

“ _No_ , Drunk Grace strikes again,” she groaned, burying her face in the pillow.

“Hey, no harm done,” Liam said. “See? Clothes still on. Crisis averted.”

“In what _possible_ way? I was a fucking disaster.”

“Nah, you--okay, yeah, you _were_ a bit--”

“Oh, God, kill me--”

“--but it’s alright. Nobody in the Initiative deserves to get any shit for being a bit of a disaster sometimes.” He pressed his lips to the back of her head. “Least of all you.”

“ _How_ are you this--”

Liam swore as she rolled to face him, the bed shaking beneath her. “Grace--shit-- _I’m_ not twenty-two. Let’s… keep the movement to a minimum, yeah? I think my head might actually explode if I don’t hold really, really still for, like… the rest of the day.”

Grace smoothed back his hair, which he’d clearly forgotten to wrap before crashing for the night, and which was now a complete mess in the cutest possible way because it was apparently physically impossible for Liam Kosta to be anything short of face-meltingly gorgeous no matter the circumstances, and _for fuck’s sake_ , Ryder, that whole train of thought was just _rude_ when the man was in pain. She activated her omni-tool. “Hey, Lexi--”

“Ryder, it’s _well_ past time that we addressed your alcohol use,” came the curt reply.

“That’s… fair,” Grace allowed. “But for what it’s worth, this time the saline drip isn’t for me.”

Lexi sighed heavily. “I’ll be right there.”

“And... maybe hold off on the lecture until we’re feeling better?”

“No promises.”

Grace shut off the omni-tool. She sat up, jostling the bed as little as she could manage. She chewed her lower lip. “So…”

Liam threaded his fingers through hers. “Maybe just vids on the couch next time?”

“That might be for the best,” Grace said, fighting back a huge, goofy smile at the suggestion that there would be a next time.

He squeezed her hand. “It’s a date.”


End file.
